Argent

Re: Drabs lacking innate Investiture. It looks like that, according to this, Drabs do have innate Investiture, just not all of it.

Alright, I'll be going tomorrow. Let me address a few questions I find interesting or otherwise notable to me: [Mckeedee123] "I've been wondering about the heavy, black stone that Sarene gave to Raoden at the end of Elantris..." I do not think there is anything special about it. I may ask to confirm this if I run out of questions though [Moogle] "Why can you use Allomancy with the mist if metal's molecular structure is what causes the effect?" If I recall correctly, the molecular structure of the Allomantic metals acts as a gate to Preservation's power, it's not the power itself. So the mists can bypass the need for a gate and dump the power directly into your hands. [...] "If a Herald died while bonded to a dead Shardblade, would they drop it or would they keep it for the next Desolation?" I am not sure what you are trying to find out here. Unless you are just being curious, in which case the question is not too interesting to me. [...] "Hemalurgic spikes are supposed to decay rapidly when out of a body, but Vin's earring was supposedly at near-full strength. How does that work?" Vin wore her earring a lot, I imagine that helped. Plus, she didn't need much in term of extra bronze power, so even a mostly decayed spike would've been okay, I think. [...] "Would a Shardblade be able to cut the God King?" I could ask this, but this is too specific of a question to give us any interesting information. It could allow us to do some very rudimentary comparison between the amount of Investiture granted by about 50,000 Breaths and the amount of Investiture necessary for the construction of a Shardplate or Blade, but I don't think it would be useful. [...] "If "Taln" held on to Jezrien's Honorblade, would he get sapphire eyes?" I am very confident this would be a RAFO. [...] "How does Lift turn food into Stormlight? Is everything 'made' of Investiture in the cosmere?" I will probably ask this in some shape or form. [...] "Breath seems like it doesn’t run out like Stormlight. You Awaken something, and it lasts basically forever. But if you Lash something, the Lashing ends a short time later. Why does Stormlight run out and Breath not?" I might ask this. [...] "What is Spiritual DNA? Could it be seen as a sort of journal of who you are, or maybe more of a web where you have a bunch of connections from you to other beings/places/concepts?" I too want to find more about sDNA, but I am not sure if this is the best question to get us that information. I may end up asking something similar still. [...] "Does Surgebinding drain heat like Awakening drains color?" I like this. It sounds like RAFO bait, but I like it. [...] "Why did Kaladin use a hammer to break Szeth's shoulder rather than a Blade to kill him? (Note: nitpicky)" I've actually been wondering about the merits of a Shardhammer. Is there any reason to use one over a Shardblade? I may ask that instead. [...] "Are there power-enhancing modifiers for soulstamps like there are for the AonDor? Can you use them to increase their power on a stamp enough to stamp Invested objects?" I like this. [...] "Because the Seon bond is similar to a Nahel bond, it seems that Passing a Seon should require a wounded spirit on the part of the person who is going to receive the Seon. Is this true? How are Seons Passed?" I think you are making some assumptions here. One possible - even likely - solution to this could have something to do with magical abilities. Forming a Nahel bond does seem to require a fractured sDNA, or soul, or spiritual aspect, but it also results in the bonded entities melding a little bit - the spren gaining a little bit of "humanity" and the human gaining Surgebinding. With a Seon bond, neither side seems to gain anything, so the bond could be much weaker, much less demanding, and ultimately - much easier to form, not requiring a fractured soul. [...] "Why are Shallan's eyes not a pale garnet like Kaladin's are a pale blue? Is it because she’s already a lighteyes?" Have we actually seen Shallan's eyes, from another character's viewpoint, after she regains her ability to use Pattern as a Shardblade? [...] "Each world seems to have a material that Investiture 'sticks' easily to. Nalthis has life, Roshar has gems, Scadrial has metal. What word should we use for it?" I like this. I may paraphrase it slightly, but I like it. [...] "Would a Parshman who received multiple Breaths become more ‘sentient’, like a listener bonded to a spren?" I could ask this. [...] "Is the woman bordering the chart at the back of TWoK intended to represent Cultivation?" This could get me a RAFO card, but I might ask it. I've been wondering about her. [...] "What difference does Allomantic strength make when using gold/electrum, if any?" I am curious about this. [Aleksiel] "I also want to add another question - did Kalak really break his bond with his Honorblade in the prelude of WoK? He just left it in the ground without doing anything special or even thinking about breaking the bond, so no intend either." I think he might answer this if the answer is affirmative. [kari-no-sugata] "When was the Recreance?" I would like to ask a broader timeline question, can you dig out some extra information for me? [IAmTheBeard] "Could someone ask if the material Shardplate is made of is important? If the answer is "yes", then ask if it is the solid form of Investiture, like Atium/Lerasium, since it does one specific thing." I don't think we'll get an answer to this. Not yet. [...] "Are Shardblades and Shardplate made from the same material?" I could, however, ask this. And throw in the bit about the Blade guards. [...] "Did people have half shards in the past? Like before the Recreance. (Or are the half shards we hear about truly a new invention?)" I think I'll ask this. [...] "If there are half shard fabrials that can block Shardblades, are there potentially half shard fabrials that cut like Shardblades?" I expect I would get a RAFO / "good question" if I asked this. [skaa] "The city of Kae is named after the Aon for "east". Are the Outer Cities around Elantris all named after the Aons for the cardinal directions? And if so, could you tell us their names?" I could probably ask this and get a response, seems innocent enough. [...] "How important is metal in fabrial science?" I think I know what you mean, but could you elaborate a little? Those are the questions I found interesting in some way. There are more, but I've tried to generally stay away from RAFOs unless I have some comment to make about them. I'll go through (some) of the ultimate questions thread and choose a few extra questions so you guys can verify whether they've been answered when I wasn't looking.

I could also maybe see a Forbidden Island / Forbidden Desert kind of game where the players race against a highstorm / Everstorm. It's not a perfect fit, but it comes to mind.

Shallan did cut through her father's Soulcaster, didn't she? My memory of those events is a little foggy...

I imagine it did. You've got all those people, essentially drunk on power from the Shards they managed to keep, carving out chunks of the world to be their own. That kind of stuff causes chaos.

I am probably going to focus on Stormlight questions - it's kind of my thing. Maybe some general Cosmere ones. Preferably something that reveals overarching Cosmerological laws. I'll think about it and post a list within the next few days. I do like the Lift question though.

Oh, my. That's a terribly inconvenient time for me. I will attend, but it's going to be an adventure...

I think a standard deck could work for Stormlight, but with a bit of fiddling. What I am thinking is a deck where ace through ten of each suit are people who share the suit's theme (more on that in a moment), while the face cards feature... other things. Concepts. Objects. Ideas. Whatever. This plays off the number ten, but otherwise feels weird to me - if anything the pip cards should be the "other things" and the face cards should be people. Some suits that come to mind are Radiants, Diagrams (not my best work), Spren (Syl as Queen of Spren and Wyndle as Jack are rock-solid in my mind), and Bridgecrews. Albino Dragon did something like this with their Name of the Wind deck, and probably most other decks - they illustrated the pip cards with something small, but unique for each number (e.g. a scroll, a candle, a stack of books, a key, etc).

I've been trying to pinpoint what exactly felt off about Elan Morin, and I think it's this - he felt like a trickster. Plus, I've been imagining him more like this for so many years, anything else feels weird.

I've always been partial to the opening line of Warbreaker:

I've been wondering where that thing came from...

Fun fact, by the way - Harriet didn't know about this either. And she is not happy about it. There may be legal action happening sometime in the near future...

Alright. Go thank the kind folks from Dragonmount and then watch the thing. On YouTube. Right here.

I got my hands on a crappy recording of it, I'll take a look at it later today. The general consensus is that it's not the worst thing in the known universe, but it's definitely not good. Which we shouldn't expect from something that went from 0 to 100% in just a few weeks. My hopes are that Red Eagle, or Universal, or somebody else actually has something longer and more solid in the works, but they realized it wouldn't be ready before the TV show rights expired, so they decided to produce Winter Dragon quickly and get the extension they need.

It's possible that Khriss isn't the author, but it would require some convoluted scenario where Nazh works for multiple people, or is a double agent, or something else... Possible, but not plausible, I think.

The WoB thread was created specifically for the Words of Radiance tour, and only spilled over to other WoBs after. I absolutely do agree that we need something with dates in it though, I visit the forum almost daily, and I still miss WoBs (albeit very infrequently).

I don't see what we have to discuss, this is utter bullchull. They are either being idiots for enforcing this rule, or there is some kind of weird - and even more idiotic - legal requirement for them to do that.

Not to me... @Quiver, does it happen every time you log in?

Tempted to give Kaladin Rider on the Storm...

I think the 5e DMG has some pretty solid ideas about porting D&D to your own universe, so that could work. This being said, I've only played with the 5e Starter Edition, so it's all hearsay. But I absolutely loved the latest edition - much much more than I did 3.5.

Hah, that's pretty awesome! I think I'll keep an eye out on these videos.

The Dagger and the Coin is a series I want to start reading soon, I just need to go through a few standalones and shorter series before I plunge myself into it.

Started The Waking Engine a couple of days ago. The premise sounds cool, the prose is either transparent or beautiful (both of which I am happy with), but it's not grabbing me as much as I thought it would. I am less than 100 pages in, though, so it could be just a slow start.

Honestly, I'd leave it to the people who have been planning this. Planning a convention is not something that comes out a forum discussion, and unless you or somebody else has a plan to take us almost all the way to the end, talking about it won't bring up such plan. I understand and share your enthusiasm, but I don't think this will be any more productive than the other recent thread about this.

Alright, so The Emperor's Blades was an alright book. Decent, maybe almost good. The Providence of Fire, however, is in a completely different league. I don't think it suffers from the "sequel syndrome" or "middle book syndrome" at all. Not only that, it's actually straight-up better than the first one. I pretty much all aspects. I recommend it highly. You can see my (always spoiler-free) review on Goodreads, but it's mostly me gushing about how good it was.